CPAC Panelist: It Is ‘A Liberal Lie’ That States Ban Gay Marriage — To be clear: 30 states have banned same-sex marriage in their state constitution, usually by legally defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Because being a conservative means never having to tell the truth about anything you disapprove of. Once again the justly famed moral probity of Republicans is on proud public display.

ALEC is coming to a town near you — This is terrible news, assuming you don’t equate lunatic fringe right wing astroturfing with functional democracy. These are the people who legalized the murder of black teen agers by middle aged assholes through Stand Your Ground, after all.

Do Virginia students really need Terry McAuliffe deciding what to call the “Sea of Japan”? — Virginia’s new Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe is learning that campaign promises have consequences. He’s landed the commonwealth in the middle of a longstanding dispute over the Sea of Japan and the Korean Peninsula. In the process, he helped Democrats lose the moral high ground when it comes to education. Gee, thanks, Terry. Big help to the progressive cause there, moron.

Rep. Paul Ryan calls for cuts in anti-poverty programs — It is, in a way, nice to see the likes of Mr. Ryan at least talking about the need to help the poor. But somehow their notion of aiding the poor involves slashing benefits while cutting taxes on the rich. Funny how that works. Look, they’re Republicans. If aliens invaded and the Yellowstone supervolcano exploded, their first response would be a call for tax cuts on the highest-earning Americans. That’s not a policy position, that’s a fetish.

[links] Link salad waves good-bye to Lisa

In Kentucky, a Family at the Center of the Earth — Jerry Bransford remembers the short day trips his family used to make to Mammoth Cave, half an hour away from their home in Glasgow, Ky. His father would tell him stories about how his family first came to know the cave as slaves but eventually became famous guides, starting a legacy that would last four generations.

Should AGs Ignore Laws They Don’t Like? — I was living in Virginia in 2006, know one of the sponsors of the ban on gay marriage, and fully understand – as you do much better than I – the bigotry and discriminatory intent behind that and these other state constitutional amendments. In fact, it is entirely possible that the sheer number of these referendums and the animus behind them exposed to the vast majority of straight Americans, who may not have thought that much about their impact on real people. Over time, I think straight Americans who voted against gay marriage came to see that they were aiding and abetting bullies and hurting real people.

Paralyzed GOP Lawmaker On Medicaid Opposes Medicaid Expansion — Meet the paralyzed Arkansas state Rep. who is voting against Medicaid expansion even though he has received more than $1 million of Medicaid funded hospitalization and rehabilitation and continues to be on Medicaid. He’s says the potential new recipients don’t work hard enough and probably just want to abuse prescription drugs.

Settled Science — 1 in 4 Americans isn’t down with heliocentricity. Because science is a cult, man. Where the priesthood of knowledge doesn’t permit alternative views. Your opinion is just as valid as some longhair Ph.D. who’s spent decades in research. Right?

5 years later, here’s how the tea party changed politics — For better or worse, the coming together of frustrated conservatives fearing American ruin due to rising debt has altered the national discussion to raise the profile of people and policies previously relegated to the right-wing fringe. That’s an awfully kind description of a political movement far better characterized by its arrant racism and proud, willful ignorance. Because really, if these people were motivated by deficit issues, where the hell were they when a white conservative named George W. Bush held office and ran up the highest deficits in history? They didn’t get mad until there was a black Democrat to blame. A GOP astroturf operations from the beginning, the Tea Party has never had a shred of intellectual or political credibility except as gifted to them by Your Liberal Media.

[links] Link salad grumps awake

Classic literature in Lego – in pictures — From a bloody battle in George RR Martin to a sensual scene from Jane Austen, Waterstones has been recreating setpieces from great literature in toy bricks to coincide with the release of The LEGO Movie. Take a child’s eye view of classic books here.

When Doctors Need to Lie — Uh, no. This whole article is paternalistic overreach, disguised as compassion. As a patient with a terminal illness who’s endured years of setbacks and complications, no, I don’t want my doctor deciding when it’s okay to lie to me.

A Death Cult run by billionaires — My question to climate change deniers is this: what if you’re wrong? The only thing that will happen if the world addresses climate change will be a somewhat orderly change in the way we use energy, some economic reorganization and a whole lot of jobs and business being done to switch to different energy sources. The changes that are being proposed to mitigate climate change are far less cataclysmic than the changes that would be imposed by unaddressed climate change itself.

Arizona Goddam — Jim Wright asks what Jesus would do in Arizona. I suppose it depends on whether you’re asking about smug Republican Jesus, or the man actually depicted in the New Testament as the Son of God. Those are two very different people.

How I lost the religion of my childhood — My parents raised me as Christian missionaries. When I finally opened my eyes, I made a stunning realization. A wonderful piece about faith and childhood. The headline notwithstanding, this is not an anti-religious article, but rather an interesting meditation on having grown up as a missionary kid. (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Star Wars actor dies: His ‘disturbing’ Star Wars role outshone a long career — Star Wars actor Richard LeParmentier died this morning in Austin. “Every time we find someone’s lack of faith disturbing, we’ll think of him,” said his family in a statement. Awesome quote in the subhead on this piece. (Via David Goldman.) ETA: While still amusing, it has been pointed out to me this is very stale news. My apologies, I did not check the date.

Old Arctic Ice Is Disappearing, and Taking the Rest of the Ice With It — It’s not hard to see that over the past few years, the oldest ice has melted away, and over time the ice gets younger. That’s not good: Older ice is thicker and tends to hang around longer; young ice is generally thinner and melts away every summer. That means that the year-round amount of ice is dropping, and dropping rapidly. As the Arctic warms, its ability not just to form ice but to keep it wanes.

Religious Liberty Or Anti-Gay Animus? — For me, with devout Catholics, the acid test is divorce. The bar on divorce – which, unlike the gay issue, is upheld directly by Jesus in the Gospels – is just as integral to the Catholic meaning of marriage as the prohibition on gay couples. So why no laws including that potential violation of religious liberty? Both kinds of marriage are equally verboten in Catholicism. So where is the political movement to insist that devout Catholics do not have to cater the second weddings of previously divorced people? Yup. Nails it.

Let’s get straight who is paying for whom — More on the ridiculous belief among rural conservatives that they are somehow being bled dry by taxes to pay for the big cities. You know, those liberal “facts” and “data”. I especially like this bit: But it’s very, very tiresome to watch a bunch of delusional narcissists taking urban tax dollars to pay for their rural infrastructure and safety nets (most SNAP recipients are white, remember) elect a bunch of jokers to Congress who prevent the people who actually pay the bills from solving big problems like climate change, healthcare, privacy, wealth inequality, poverty, and financial corruption.

The French way of cancer treatment — [T]he French system is basically like an expanded Medicaid. Pretty much everyone has insurance, it explained, and the French get better primary care and more choice of doctors than we do. It also turns out, as has been much commented on, that despite all this great treatment, the French spend far less on healthcare than Americans. But Socialism is evil! No matter that people live longer, with better quality of life, for less cost. (Snurched from Alexander Unwyn Cherry.)

Herpin: ‘A good thing’ that James Holmes had 100-round magazine — Republican state Sen. Bernie Herpin raised the ire of an Aurora theater shooting victim’s father when he claimed that it might have been “a good thing” that gunman James Holmes had a 100-round magazine when he opened fire and, ultimately, killed 12 people. I cannot even bring myself to snark about this.

Doctors: Abortion laws carry risk — Even those who oppose abortion say that before giving their best medical advice, they may need to call a lawyer. All in accordance with that bedrock conservative principle of not letting the government come between you and your doctor.

Young Salmon Born Knowing Migration Route — Without any prior migration experience, juvenile Chinook salmon can find their way to ancestral feeding grounds by using the Earth’s magnetic field and an inherited internal map, according to a new study.

22 Messages From Creationists To People Who Believe In Evolution — I asked 22 self-identifying creationists at the Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate to write a message/question/note to the other side. Here’s what they wrote. Interesting piece, misleading headline. Evolution isn’t a “belief” in the sense that creationism is a “belief”. It exists, demonstrably and provably, independently of whatever your or I might understand or hold faith in. Believing in evolution is like believing in gravity or weather.

The Creation of Debate — The people who are attacking evolution are doing so because they think evolution is attacking their beliefs. But unless they are the narrowest of fundamentalists, this simply is not true. There is no greater proof of this than Pope John Paul II—who, one must admit, was a deeply religious man—saying that evolution was an established fact. Clearly, not all religion has a problem with evolution.

Google Earth Shows You a Warming Planet — The facts are in, and the science is clear: The planet is getting hotter. The Google Earth app will help make that even more obvious. I urge folks to get it and play with it. Facts don’t speak for themselves, but this app helps give them a voice.

The Inefficiency of Long Hours — Having worked in fields heavily dependent on punishing amounts of white collar overtime (advertising, software consulting), I understand why individual managers and executives ask this of their teams, but I have never understood why the industries as a whole, not to mention their clients, tolerate the resulting errors and inefficiencies.

Atlanta Storm Was a Government Conspiracy? Snow Way! — Unless folks can learn from their mistaken ideas, this kind of thinking is dangerous. We know that political parties and ideologically based “think tanks” will spread disinformation that gets absorbed by the public through various media. That’s no tinfoil-hat theory, that’s fact—you only need to read about the history of the tobacco industry (and now the fossil fuel industry) to see this. I draw your attention to the Texas Republican Party platform in 2012, which explicitly opposed teaching critical thinking skills.

Winter Heat Swamps Alaska — In January 2014, record-breaking heat left Alaskans dealing with unseasonable bouts of rain and avalanches.

‘In God We Trust—but We Have Put Our Faith in Our Guns’ — Florida teenager Jordan Davis was shot by Michael Dunn after an argument over music. His mother, Lucia McBath, talks about losing her son and her fight against Stand Your Ground laws. Read this, especially if you’re one of those people who believes guns make us all safer.